


To Observe

by Sholio



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Exhibitionism, Masturbation, Multi, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:12:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the HL kinkmeme: Joe likes to watch. See notes for full prompt. Also contains brief mention of past Dawson/Ian Bancroft.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Observe

**Author's Note:**

> Full prompt from HL_kink: "Joe really likes to watch (please not 'poor Joe is unwanted and can only watch'). Bonus points if you touch on the consensuality/non-consensuality and ethics - Joe either considers his kink a bit of a vice and his dirty little secret OR he never allows himself to indulge and his good friends find it out and give him a present he can enjoy in good conscience."

They're at it again, playing footsie at the table in the corner.

There's almost no one else in the bar -- it's still kinda early on a Tuesday evening. So there's not much to distract him. Joe usually uses this quiet time to catch up what needs doing: right now he's supposed to be updating the books. But he keeps glancing up.

He's a Watcher, right? It's what he does.

Something that Methos says makes Duncan laugh, and Joe looks up to see Duncan leaning forward, head tilted, face soft and open. Methos is smiling, closed-off as usual, but there's a warm light in his eyes. He brushes the back of his hand down Duncan's arm when he reaches to pick up his beer, and the casual intimacy of it makes something quick and hot race through the pit of Joe's stomach. Their knees are resting together under the table.

Joe looks down at the ledger spread out on the bar and focuses on the quiet scratching of his pen. Once his eyes are off them, though, the scene continues to play out in his mind. In his mind's eye Duncan is leaning forward, lips parted in that quick bright grin. Methos leans in to capture Duncan's lower lip in his teeth, his eyes open the whole time because he wants to see the changes on Duncan's face --

Joe shakes his head and pours himself a couple fingers of whiskey without bothering to look at the bottle or glass. He can do it by touch. In the corner, Methos and Duncan both laugh. He doesn't look over, takes a drink instead.

This is the part of Watching that they don't talk about, the Watchers: even to each other, but _especially_ to someone who hasn't been there. Other Watchers understand -- at least he thinks they do; he's never really talked about it to anyone but Ian Bancroft. Joe's stomach twists with a queasy blend of nostalgia and guilt and love and the ghostly memory of passion. Ian trained him in field ops, and he'll never forget those nights in cheap hotel rooms or hastily rented apartments, binoculars trained on the room across the street. The relief of knowing that it wasn't just him, that there wasn't something wrong with him for feeling that way. Ian's fingers sliding under the waistband of his pants. His own hand pushing the binoculars aside so that their lips could meet, but always, always, out of the corners of both their eyes, Watching their target across the street ...

God, he misses Ian sometimes.

This aspect of Watching .... it's not about the thrill of watching someone else have sex, not really, not for him. He can get that on cable TV or in any strip bar down by the docks. It's the openness, really: the way that so much shows on their faces when they let it -- when they think they aren't being observed. The rush of arousal that he gets when he catches Methos leaning over Duncan's shoulder, or Duncan taking a quick sip from Methos's glass -- it's the same hot thrill that he used to feel when he'd catch a glimpse of his target through a crack in the curtains, just doing something normal and comfortably domestic: cooking, leaning on the back of the couch. Laughing with a friend. Or sitting in some cafe with a hand on Tessa's elbow...

He doesn't do that anymore, because Duncan's his friend and you don't spy on your friends without their consent. Not like that, anyway. If he needs information for the Chronicle he maintains, all he has to do is ask. He tries to tell himself that he doesn't miss it, that the warm familiarity of his friendship with these people more than makes up for long cold nights of surveillance in his car. And, mostly, it's true.

But then there are nights like this.

The door opens and closes, letting out the only other customer besides the Immortals -- and letting in Amanda, all slinky grace and heat. 'cause, yeah, this is exactly what he needs when Duncan and Methos already have his pants a few sizes too tight. "Hi, Joe," she says, and he smiles and nods, and pours her a glass of her favorite wine before she has a chance to ask for it. Her fingers brush his when he hands it over. He doesn't watch her stroll across the room to the boys. Doesn't watch to see if she leans on Duncan's shoulder and nips his ear, or drapes herself over Methos's arm instead ...

He focuses, instead, on recalculating last month's receipts and trying to figure out whether his budget can absorb the delivery fees this new wholesaler tacks on, or if he needs to look for another supplier.

But the scene continues to play out in his mind's eye: Methos sprawled limp and boneless in his chair, long fingers playing with his glass of beer ... Amanda with her hand curved over his thigh, bright red fingernails creasing his jeans. Her foot hooked around Duncan's ankle, pulling him a little closer to her. And Duncan's hand resting on Methos's arm, completing the circle.

He has to look up for just a minute, has to know if the picture has arranged itself the way that it has in his mind. So he glances over quickly and, he hopes, casually -- a stolen glimpse, just a fast look. Maybe this is the way Amanda feels when she steals: this breath-catching, heart-stopping quiver of _wrong_ and _But what if I get caught?_

They're looking at him. All three of them. For an instant his heart stops in his chest. Then Duncan's eyes catch his: warm and aware and knowing him too, too well.

He knows he should break the contact and look away. He wants to apologize somehow. But before he can do anything, say anything, Duncan lowers his eyes and leans across the table to press a kiss to Methos's knuckles where they curve around the beer glass.

The corner of Methos's mouth quirks. He flicks a quick glance to Joe, meets his eyes briefly, and while Joe can't read what's there any better than usual, he can tell there's no condemnation or anger. Still, no one's more startled than Joe -- except maybe Amanda -- when Methos hooks a long arm around Amanda's tight little waist and pulls her into his lap. Amanda squeaks and Joe _almost_ doesn't catch her fast glance in his direction, too, because it's little more than a roll of the eyes: she's a lot better at being subtle than the boys are. Then she settles herself more comfortably in Methos's lap, leans forward and takes one of his fingers into her mouth.

Joe can feel his eyes just about pop out of his head. He takes a fast look around the bar just to make sure that there isn't someone in the corner that he overlooked, but it's just the four of them. And damned if those three don't look like they're about to crawl onto the table and start having sex right now.

Duncan is actually blushing, even though he's the one who started it -- and Duncan should have known, Joe thinks, with the small part of his brain that's still capable of rational thought, what he was getting into with these two. Then Amanda pulls her mouth off Methos's finger with an audible pop, leans over and whispers something to Duncan. Duncan jumps to his feet like she just set his pants on fire and crosses the room -- Joe has time to think _Shit_ and one awful moment of wondering if they've just damaged their friendship irreparably, before Duncan flips the sign on the door to CLOSED and pops the lock home. Then he looks up, meets Joe's eyes again for a fraction of a second, and smiles.

Joe realizes that he's actually dizzy, maybe because most of his blood is currently located in zones farther south. He can't believe they're actually doing this. For him.

He hasn't been this hard since he was a teenager.

By the time Duncan makes it back over to the other two -- he's obviously hard, too, enough to tent out his jeans -- Amanda's slipped around to straddle Methos and one of her hands has worked its way down the waistband of his pants. Duncan looks briefly confused as to how to proceed -- a bar table, three chairs, not much room to maneuver -- but then he sits on the edge of the table and wraps his powerful arms around Amanda from behind. She's wearing a short backless dress, and Duncan slips a hand under the edge of the fabric, sliding his hand around to cup her breast. Presumably. Joe can't see Amanda's front, or what Duncan's doing with his hand, and that just heightens the tension.

Joe might have let out a small groan. He's not sure. All ability to think rationally seems to have deserted him at this point.

Methos has one hand under Amanda's skirt, and the other is somewhat incongruously still holding his beer. He leans back carefully, sets the beer on the next table over, and then reaches around Amanda and starts undoing Duncan's pants by touch.

Joe's breath is coming short and fast. He's so hard it aches, and he wants to undo his own pants, relieve some of the tension, but he's afraid that once he starts touching himself it'll all be over. And he wants this to last --

\-- but he almost loses it anyway when Amanda draws in her breath and arches suddenly. No real mystery about what Methos is doing with that concealed hand, though their angle is such that Joe can't see anything but Amanda's reaction. She shudders, leaning back against Duncan, who is leaning a lot more of his weight on the table now, his legs spread to accommodate both of them. He's still fondling Amanda with one hand, while using the other to guide Methos's hand down into his pants.

As Amanda's aftershocks fade, she leans forward and kisses Methos hungrily.

Joe reaches down under the bar and undoes his own zipper as quietly as possible, letting himself spring free. Just that small touch makes him shudder. His whole body is wound up like a coiled spring, waiting for release.

Duncan and Methos both hit the edge together, Duncan under Methos's ministrations, Methos under Amanda's. Joe can't see Duncan's face, just the rigidity in his shoulders -- but he can see Methos, see the way that Methos tips his head back, eyes closing, face going soft and lips parting. And that apparently does it for Amanda again -- she arches her back, head flung back, leaning into Duncan and grinding against Methos's thigh. And that's it for Joe's tenuous self-control. He wraps his hand around his aching cock, strips it fast -- once, twice, and he's gone in the electric white noise of the best damn orgasm he's had in years.

He comes down slowly, breathing hard, and reaches for a handful of paper towels to clean up. Across the bar, his three friends are tangled limply together: Amanda draped over Methos's lap with her head on his shoulder, Duncan holding her from behind while he idly strokes Methos's hair with his other hand. Methos murmurs something and Duncan laughs softly. The three of them disentangle with a few casual kisses, and the two men head for the bathroom to clean up.

Amanda pats her hair into place and saunters over to the bar, reaching under the strap of her dress to settle her bra back into place. She's flushed and breathless and happy, her eyes sparkling. "Good for you?" she asks him, leaning her elbows on the edge of the bar.

"Oh God," is all Joe can get out.

"I like to leave them speechless," Amanda says cheerfully, and wanders off to the bathroom herself.

Duncan and Methos return a moment later and settle themselves at the bar rather than going back to their table. "My beer's flat," Methos remarks, setting the glass on the edge of the bar. Joe draws him a new one, all the while wondering if there's something he ought to say here. He came of age in the sixties, but this is still a new one even for him.

"Did you hear Daphne has surfaced again?" Duncan says to Methos. "In Johannesburg, apparently."

"Daphne? Daphne the oracle, that Daphne? I thought she'd been beheaded years ago."

And so it goes, typical Immortal small talk. Amanda rejoins them shortly, and the awkwardness Joe was afraid of never materializes. They've all seen each other bleed and cry and kill, grieve and love and hate. Seeing them fuck is not such a strange thing.

Joe leaves the bar locked, the CLOSED sign in place, and goes back to working through the receipts. He's got that warm, lazy, wiped-out sense of wellbeing that comes from good sex. Their conversation washes over him, familiar and comforting; he tunes in and out.

After a while Methos casually slides a hand across the bar and laces his fingers through the fingers of Joe's free hand. The conversation carries on.


End file.
